The Virginian

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Mark Steyn on the current set of lunatics running the asylum ... in Britain and elsewhere.

After all, what, other than the walled-up windows of the Westminster village, makes UKIP's 23 percent the "lunatic fringe" and the Conservatives' 25 percent the "mainstream"? The real problem facing Britain (and Europe) is a lunatic mainstream, determined on a course of profound, existential change for which there is no popular mandate whatsoever.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Trayvon Martin's Name Change if Official

If there is any doubt in any one's mind, Trayvon martin has two new first names: "Unarmed Teenager." A name change must be the answer because there is no other logical explanation for the fact that no news report of the shooting or the trial of White Hispanic George Zimmerman will not use his full name: Unarmed Teenager Trayvon Martin. As an example taken at random, here's the Christian Science Monitor.

Asked to reconcile these two paragraphs, Senator Hoeven explained that, “when I read through that with my lawyer,” the guy said relax, don’t worry about it. (I paraphrase, but barely.) So Senator Hoeven and 67 other senators went ahead the following day and approved the usual bazillion-page we-have-to-pass-it-to-find-out-what’s-in-it omnibus bill, cooked up in the backrooms, released late on a Friday afternoon and passed in nothing flat after Harry Reid decreed there’s no need for further debate

But then gets to the heart of the matter, the Supremes and gay marriage:

Just when you thought the day couldn’t get any more momentous, the Supreme Court weighed in on same-sex marriage. When less advanced societies wish to introduce gay marriage, the people’s elected representatives assemble in parliament and pass a law. That’s how they did it in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, etc. But one shudders to contemplate what would result were the legislative class to attempt “comprehensive marriage reform,” complete with tax breaks for Maine lobstermen’s au pairs and the hiring of 20,000 new IRS agents to verify business expenses for page boys from disparate-impact groups. So instead it fell to five out of nine judges, which means it fell to Anthony Kennedy, because he’s the guy who swings both ways. Thus, Supreme Intergalactic Emperor Anthony gets to decide the issue for 300 million people.

As Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben so famously says in every remake, with great power comes great responsibility. Having assumed the power to redefine a societal institution that predates the United States by thousands of years, Emperor Tony the All-Wise had the responsibility at least to work up the semblance of a legal argument. Instead, he struck down the Defense of Marriage Act on the grounds that those responsible for it were motivated by an “improper animus” against a “politically unpopular group” they wished to “disparage,” “demean,” and “humiliate” as “unworthy.” What stump-toothed knuckle-dragging inbred swamp-dwellers from which hellish Bible Belt redoubt would do such a thing? Well, fortunately, we have their names on the record: The DOMA legislators who were driven by their need to “harm” gay people include notorious homophobe Democrats Chuck Schumer, Pat Leahy, Harry Reid, Joe Biden, and the virulent anti-gay hater who signed it into law, Bill Clinton.

To take Kennedy's animus against conservatives to it's logical conclusion:

There is something deeply weird, not to say grubby and dishonest, about this. In its imputation of motive to those who disagree with it, this opinion is more disreputable than Roe v. Wade — and with potentially unbounded application. To return to the immigration bill, and all its assurances that those amnestied will “go to the end of the line” and have to wait longer for full-blown green cards and longer still for citizenship, do you seriously think any of that hooey will survive its first encounter with a federal judge? In much of the Southwest, you’d have jurisdictions with a majority of Hispanic residents living under an elderly, disproportionately white voting roll. You can cut-and-paste Kennedy’s guff about “improper animus” toward “a group of people” straight into the first immigration appeal, and a thousand more. And that’s supposing the administrative agencies pay any attention to the “safeguards” in the first place.

More bullshit from the Bat Cave at the Virginian Pilot

Even as predictions of doom from the hysterics pushing the global warming hoax are shown to be junk science. Even as global temperatures stubbornly refuse to conform to predictions. Even as reality sinks in to most people, the true believers in the Bat Cave known as the Virginian Pilot continue to push the lie. Like the cultists who, finding themselves still alive after the “end of the world” passes, don’t stop believing, they just move the date.

So today, they cheered Obama on as he decided to via executive fiat to shut down the coal industry and close the single largest source of electrical power in the US. Because of the “science.”

You know how you can tell that Donny Luzatto and the rest of the Pilot’s boys and girls don’t believe their own bullshit? Because if they did, they would refuse to produce a product that generates tons of waste per day, contributing mightily to those greenhouse gases they claim to fear.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Modern Family

As the Supremes bless gay marriage and banish those who support traditional marriage into the outer darkness of un-hipdom, we began to wonder whether gay couples who wish to marry every have mother-in-law problems.

You know the kind I mean. Steve tells his mother he wants to marry George. Does his mother ever tell him that George is not good enough? That George is a slut who would not be welcome in her house? Does she ask how much George earns and wonder how her son is going to be supported? Does she ask how many kids they are planning to adopt … and raise? Will the two mothers fight over the reception, the wedding venue and the number of guests each family will be allowed to invite? Who pays for what in the modern nuptials?

I will look forward to finding the answers to these and other fascinating questions as time unfolds.

Thursday, June 27, 2013

In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that 26,000 service members experienced unwanted sexual contact in 2012, up from 19,000 in 2010. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men.

I have argued many times that there is actually a better case for polygamy than for same sex marriage. It has a longer and more diverse tradition and is supported and sanctioned by a number of religions.

Matt Lewis:

Discussing the Supreme Court’s decision on gay marriage recently, Sen. Rand Paul joked about bestiality. This was unwise. If Paul wanted to make the slippery slope argument, the case for polygamy is much more compelling — and realistic.

This is not some straw man argument. As BuzzFeed’s McKay Coppins pointed out, polygamists are, in fact, celebrating the court’s decision. And they have every reason to do so. After all, why shouldn’t marriage equality apply to them, too?

The arguments are essentially the same. For example, Sen. Al Franken recently issued a statement saying, “Our country is starting to understand that it’s not about what a family looks like: it’s about their love and commitment to one another.” Polygamists couldn’t agree more.

I mean, who are we to say that two or three or even four consenting adults — who want to make a lifelong commitment to love each other — shouldn’t be allowed to do so?

What’s magical about the number two?

There are practical reasons, too. It’s harder and harder these days to make ends meet. As a man, I can only imagine how much more efficient it would be to have one wife in the workforce and another wife at home with the kids. This would be much better for the children than shipping them off to some nursery school. And having three parents is a lot better than having just one … or none.

Obama and the Global Warming Ploy

The man who promised us shovel-ready jobs, and joked when it didn't work, is going to change the earth's climate.

This is the same man who ...

Promised that his first act as President was to close Guantanamo

Focused like a laser beam on creating jobs, causing millions to flee the labor market

Promised to fix the economy and presided over the worst recovery in the last hundred years

Employed “smart diplomacy” to transform the Middle-East into a boiling cauldron of America haters busy making nuclear weapons

Attacked Libya so that he could have his ambassador and three other American killed by terrorists while he does a disappearing act

Re-set the relationship with the Russians so that they could send their nuclear subs on patrol again

And did all this while making America the brokest nation on earth.

I honestly don’t know if his move to focus on changing the weather is the action of a fool or a cynical ploy to take attention away from his Benghazi, IRS, voter suppression, domestic spying and gun-running scandals, but at this point I don’t care. That's a job for his psychiatrist.

He's not going to change the climate. What he will do is throw people like coal miners, coal haulers, power plant workers, railroad employees, mining equipment makers and others associated with mining and the communities that depend on them out of work. And that's just off the top of my head.

At the same time he will increase everyone's electricity rates and cause brown-outs as older power plants go off the grid. What? Do you think that wind farms and solar panels will generate electricity faster that you can close the door on a coal fired plant? I'll bet you were the same ones who fell for the "shovel-ready" scam. Here's some more news for you bunkie, you can't transform coal fired plants into gas fired plants.

I'm checking my pocket copy of the Constitution to see if there’s something in it that prevents us from arresting this maniac before he does any more damage.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today and heard one caller tell him that if the opposition to gay marriage had only excluded the reference to religion, it would have won. That’s ridiculous of course. There’s nothing that can withstand the zeitgeist made up of the media, the academy and the legal establishment. Forget about it. The church will be next; at least that part that still believes in the gospel. That’s a shrinking faction.

Like it or not, this is where the end-game is leading:if the Church won’t obey The Party; if it will not acquiesce to The Party, it will have to be dismantled, bit-by-bit. While everyone else is tilting at windmills, insisting that “if we just work hard, keep telling the truth, keep repeating ourselves in our echo chambers, we can still win” (an insistence that assists The Party by keeping most folks distracted and divided, by the way) The Party is intent on accomplishing a kind of coup against the Catholic church and all believers of “orthodox” stripe. Tax-exempt status’ will soon be stripped. Lawsuits will be filed. Properties will be confiscated and awarded elsewhere. A Carter-ballyhooed “enlightened” American Catholic Church will quickly emerge — one happily in tune with the secular government and all of its social pronouncements; one that can “partner” with the government in a way the stubborn old Roman church never would. Its pews will fill early because its message will resonate with the Oprahesque and shallow Gospel of Feeling Good About Ourselves that we have been so attentively tutored-to these past decades. There will be bells; there will be smells; there will be rites and rituals and it will all seem like the Catholic church, but it won’t be. It will be the Church of The Party. China has one, too. The Roman church, the remnant, lives underground.

It will not be long before there are underground churches in America. And why not?

The hits just keep on coming. Is there anyone in the IRS who is actually honest?

The Committee learned of allegations concerning a series of contracts, potentially worth more than $500 million, awarded by the IRS to Strong Castle. Witnesses who contacted the Committee alleged that Strong Castle engaged in fraud to win those IRS contracts. Documents and testimony obtained by the Committee showed that a cozy relationship between Strong Castle President and Chief Executive Officer Braulio Castillo and IRS Deputy Director for IT Acquisition Greg Roseman may have influenced the selection process.

Liberals Decry Loss of Power to Harass, Intimidate Opponents.

The Supreme Court’s decision that removes Federal Government’s power to micromanage the voting patterns in some states, but not in others, was the subject of front page news locally. The ruling was denounced by every Democrat quoted. Louise Lucas, a state legislator and Democrat stalwart first said she was dumbstruck, but then changed her mind. "I was heartbroken," said Lucas "This is the worst thing I've ever seen out of the Supreme Court. It's unconscionable."

This commentary was repeated in various ways in the entire front page “newsatorial” in the Virginian Pilot. It’s as if the Supreme court had overturned the Civil War and ruled for the reinstitution of slavery.

But what’s really at work here is that this ruling is a blow to the power of Democrats to harass and intimidate their political enemies. The Democrats are now firmly entrenched in the permanent government; the agencies that make the rules the rest of us are forced to live by. And we have experienced how that is working out when the Left seizes control. The lesson began with the Black Panther voted intimidation case which the Justice Department dropped when Eric Holder became Attorney General. We see how the permanent bureaucracy at the IRS is a handy tool for Democrat intimidation of any group they view as enemies. We see it in the NSA spying revelations which are used to gather a dossier on everyone in the country. We see it even in the politicization of overseas catastrophes like Benghazi where people were left to die so that Democrat politicians could get past the next election before the truth came out. We see it heading for us as Obama instructs the EPA to shut down coal fired power plants, throwing people out of work but providing an opportunity to create more welfare dependents and free rein for “green” crony capitalists to amass wealth. We are beginning to see how ObamaCare is really a jobs program for Democrat politicians who want to retire with a six figure salary.

Any little thing that removes power from the permanent Democrat machine in Washington is considered a threat and must be denounced. When you have your foot on the neck of the American people, moving that foot even a little bit is a danger to your dominance and must be fought on every front. The Virginian Pilot is doing its share.

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

The debate over the U.S. government’s monitoring of digital communications suggests that Americans are willing to allow it as long as it is genuinely targeted at terrorists. What they fail to realize is that the surveillance systems are best suited for gathering information on law-abiding citizens.

People concerned with online privacy tend to calm down when told that the government can record their calls or read their e-mail only under special circumstances and with proper court orders. The assumption is that they have nothing to worry about unless they are terrorists or correspond with the wrong people.

The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.

The pissants writing for the Virginian Pilot may want to take a good look at these mug shots. These are the faces of the people who the Pilot claim don’t exist.

Without the forged signatures it’s possible that Clinton would have beaten Obama in Indiana simply because Obama didn’t have enough signatures on his petitions without the forgeries.

How is it possible for electoral corruption to take place? Very simple: the people who commit the fraud are the same ones who certify the results.

From the story:

As Hillary Clinton prepares for a possible presidential run in 2016, it appears that she could have knocked then-candidate Barack Obama off the 2008 primary ballot in Indiana.

If anyone, including her campaign, had challenged the names and signatures on the presidential petitions that put Obama on the ballot, election fraud would have been detected during the race.

In court, former longtime St. Joseph County Democratic Chairman Butch Morgan, Jr. was sentenced to one year behind bars, and is expected to serve half that, as well as Community Corrections and probation. Former St. Joseph County Board of Elections worker and Democratic volunteer Dustin Blythe received a sentence of one year in Community Corrections and probation, which means no jail time.

Former St. Joseph County Board of Voter Registration Democratic board member Pam Brunette and Board of Voter Registration worker Beverly Shelton previously pleaded guilty and testified for prosecutors against Morgan and Blythe. They both received two years of probation.

"When you do something like this, we are going to find out and you're going to be held accountable," declared Levco. He called the sentences "appropriate."

Others disagreed.

"We would like to have seen more jail time for Morgan ... but it was more than we were expecting," said St. Joseph County Republican Party Executive Director Jake Teshka. He thinks the three other defendants "got off easy."

The election fraud was first uncovered by Yale University junior Ryan Nees, who wrote about the scheme for the independent political newsletter Howey Politics Indiana and the South Bend Tribune.

Nees has told Fox News that the fraud was clearly evident, "because page after page of signatures are all in the same handwriting."

He also noted that no one raised any red flags about the forgeries, and that the petitions sailed through the Board of Elections without any problems, "because election workers in charge of verifying their validity were the same people faking the signatures."

"The most amazing part about this voter fraud case involving the highest office in the United States is the fact that such a few number of people, because of laziness, arrogance or both did not do their job and thus could have affected the outcome of the election," noted St. Joseph County Republican Party Charwoman Dr. Deborah Fleming.

[snip]

The scheme was hatched in January of 2008, four months before the primary, according to affidavits from investigators. Former Board of Registration worker and Democratic Party volunteer Lucas Burkett told them he forged signatures and was part of the forgery plan at first, but then became uneasy about what was going on and quit.

[snip]

Numerous voters told Fox News that they never signed them.

"That's not my signature," Charity Rorie, a mother of four, told Fox News when showed the Obama petition with her name and signature on it. She was stunned, saying that it "absolutely" was a fake, as well as the name and signature of her husband, Jeff.

"It's scary, it's shocking. It definitely is illegal," she told us.

Robert Hunter, Jr. told Fox News that his name was faked, too.

"I did not sign for Barack Obama," he said, as he looked at the petition listing his name and signature.

Even a former Democratic governor of Indiana, Joe Kernan, told Fox News that his name was forged.

Keep in mind that all the time Democrats at the IRS were harassing and suppressing the Tea Party and voter fraud was occurring thorough the country, the Democrats at the Virginian Pilot were accusing Republicans of disenfranchising poor, elderly, Black Democrats by requiring voters to show some identification when they cast their ballots. It does not stretch the bounds of credulity that the editors were trying to make it easier for Democrats to steal elections.

Monday, June 24, 2013

The Naulahka

Kipling (via Vanderleun again)

Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryanbrown,For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth theChristian down;And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name ofthe late deceased,And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle theEast."

Bob: "Did you hear about the Obama administration scandal?"Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean SEAL Team 6 Extortion 17?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean the State Dept. lying about Benghazi?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean the voter fraud?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean the president demoralizing and breaking down the military?"Bob: "No, the other one."Jim: "You mean the Boston Bombing?"Bob: "No, the other one."

One of those off-the-record moments [with the press during the 2012 campaign] was an event where President Obama joined reporters for drinks while the campaign was in Orlando, Fla., an event that Hastings partially details in the book.

“The behavior of the assembled press corps was telling. Everyone, myself included, swooned. Swooned! Head over heels. One or two might have even lost their minds,” Hastings writes, as each reporter had a chance to speak personally with the president. “We were all, on some level, deeply obsessed with Obama, crushing hard, still a little love there. This was nerd heaven, a politico’s paradise, the subject himself moving among us — shaking our hands, slapping our shoulders!”

Hastings reveals that [one evening] the president spent “over an hour” with reporters who later stayed up late buzz[ing] over every detail of the evening.

“Did this inform our reporting, did seeing the man in the flesh, in a somewhat staged and casual setting, provide new, deep, and lasting insights?” asks a reflective Hastings in his book. “Yes, I would say, but again, I’m not at liberty to share.”

Later, Hastings detailed campaign journalists’ jealous protection over the details, as members quickly reminded him that the event was “off-the-record.”

Much to the ire of his fellow reporters, Hastings revealed that the event occurred – a month later.

Even though the event itself was off-the-record, Hastings argued, the press corps had a duty to report that the event occurred, adding that the behavior of his fellow reporters, wasn’t necessarily off the record either.

Naturally, Hastings was chastised by many of his campaign colleagues for revealing some of the precious details of the event.

“The fear was that the White House would collectively punish all of us by revoking the already limited access or, worse, Obama might never come down and hang out with us again,” Hastings writes.

Campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki, Hastings notes, was furious and angrily phoned his editor Ben Smith for publishing details of the event. In response, the Obama campaign banished him from the campaign plane for a week.

Who trusts those who have betrayed you?

The problem is, it’s hard to trust the people who are supposed to use that data to protect us to do so, when they abandoned their own in Benghazi. And it’s hard to trust them not to use that data to oppress us, when they’ve already abused their powers that way in other connections. Which is why abuse of power is itself a kind of treason: It weakens the fabric of the nation like nothing else, by undermining the trust that is essential for the system to work.

That’s the point. The actual chances of being killed by a Muslim on Jihad are quite small. The chances of being targeted by the government seem to be bigger, especially since the government seems to operate with impunity and with the support of the Liberal establishment. At least when the Islamofascists set off a bomb in Boston most people react negatively (even if some fell in love with the bombers). On the other hand, when the Tea Parties across the land were being harassed by the IRS, the press didn’t care and after the truth was revealed the press and much of the rest of the Left thought they had it coming. If this government decides to find a way to ban Rush Limbaugh I’m confident that they will have the support of the MSM.

A final point for Mr. Simon: the NSA has been gathering information for years yet the Tsarnaev brothers were not intercepted even though they had been identified by the Russians as violent extremists and Major Nidal was not detected even though his calling card identified him as a “Soldier of Allah.” The NSA apparently didn’t alert Obama to the fact that the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with a demonstration or with a cheesy video as his administration claimed. The NSA can't even keep a high school drop out from getting its hands on its data. At this point the NSA program seems to be more effective at identifying Americans who disagree with the administration than with actual physical threats to Americans.

Democrats at the state level and Team Obama preparing the battlespace for the 2012 election.

PJ Media has obtained documents demonstrating that the New Hampshire attorney general was in discussions with Eric Holder’s Department of Justice regarding filing criminal charges against journalist James O’Keefe after he exposed vulnerabilities in New Hampshire’s electoral system in the January 10, 2012, presidential primary.

In his hidden-camera investigation, O’Keefe demonstrated how the lack of a photo-voter identification law in New Hampshire facilitated voter fraud by allowing impersonation of dead voters. Worse, O’Keefe captured video showing that election officials like Ryk Bullock were oblivious to this vulnerability.

It seems a cast of thousands were trying to jail O’Keefe for showing how easy it is to commit voter fraud. Meanwhile actual voter fraud is not a concern of Obama’s US Attorney John Walsh.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

The NY Times is shocked that the Jeep Cherokee may re-appear. It's not that they have a problem with the car (although that may also be the case) but they find the use of "Cherokee" offensive as the name for a car.

Having had the asshats at the Times praise pictures of naked me with bullwhips stuck in their rectums, the idea that the jerks working for the snot-nosed kid who ran the paper into the ground are offended by seeing a Jeep Cherokee driving around is nuts. Especially because the same jerk thinks that he is less easily shocked than the people outside of his building.

Sulzberger [said snot nosed kid] said. He maintained that the paper reflected “a value system that recognizes the power of flexibility.” But the cat was out of the bag. An authoritative voice at the Times had said, in effect, that the paper’s views—especially in matters of culture—were characterized by moral relativism and a celebration of the transgressive over traditional American norms and values.

I love that line that “We’re less easily shocked,” and all of its inherent hubris. Particularly since it’s been obvious for years that the sensibilities of those who inhabit the offices of the Times cause them to get the vapors at the slightest offense. For well over a century, the goal of bohemian modern art was “épater le bourgeois” — shocking the bourgeois — but as David Brooks noted a decade ago (before he became a would-be presidential fashion critic), today’s wannabe bohemians are the bourgeois. The average person who drops in on the Museum of Modern Art is rather jaded these days when he views the output of this week’s newest would-be Mapplethorpe, but look at how easy it is to shock the left:

The IRS sent more than $46 million in tax refunds to 23,994 “unauthorized” alien workers who all listed the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to an audit report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

However, the Atlanta address that received millions of dollars in refunds was not the only address apparently housing thousands of “unauthorized” aliens. In fact, it wasn’t even the only address in Atlanta that was claiming such a situation.

The "Gaslight" President

Acting the lead role in the “most transparent administration” in history is a challenge, especially when your administration is spying on every phone call made and every byte that’s put on the Internet. But he’s pulled it off for a big part of the audience. How else can you get awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while “droning” your enemies, surging into Afghanistan and attacking Libya? How else can you keep Guantanamo open while giving speech after speech denouncing its existence? How else can you get rave reviews for your ethics while turning the IRS loose on your political opponents, claim to be outraged, and tell the world that the first time you heard about it was when you read it in the papers?

That, my friend, is a tour de force worthy of an Emmy.

The mind tricks that Obama plays on Americans are way beyond what Charles Boyer’s character plays on Ingrid Bergman in “Gaslight.” There is an eerie similarity between the 1944 movie and 2013 America. In the movie, Boyer wants everyone to think Bergman’s crazy. In America, Obama’s opponents are labeled crazy, or racist, or both. Remember how we were told that bloggers were people sitting in their basement wearing pajamas? Thanks to Obama’s adoring fans in the press an entire Internet communications company was named PJ Media after this famous slur. Sarah Palin was “Gaslighted” to the point where she’s labeled not only crazy but stupid.

Like every actor, Obama could not have achieved his stardom without an effective PR machine. In this case the MSM volunteered to do the job for free. Even after a full four year term in office, none of the economic, political, foreign policy or moral failures that America has experienced during his administration have been attributed to him. His PR machine blames his predecessor, his underlings or Mother Nature; never him.

Keep in mind, at heart he’s just a photogenic Chicago politician. And that’s the tragedy. Chicago, one of America’s great cities, has been systematically looted by its Democrat machine, much like the killer in Gaslight plots to loot his victim’s home.

We know how Gaslight ends. We are in our own sequel and we don’t know the ending. There is no guarantee that the good guys will win; they haven't so far. Perhaps this time, Boyer wins. There’s a lot of loot in America’s attic.

The Food Network star campaigned for Obama back in 2008, and invited his wife Michelle to cook with her during an episode of Paula’s Party. Later, she said she “just loved” being around the First Lady, and praised her platform: encouraging kids and young adults to eat healthy and get plenty of exercise.

James Taranto has made the point repeatedly (and it's wroth repeating) that it’s very bad if the Obama Administration pressured the IRS into unfairly targeting various Tea Party groups and Republican donors. We began with the belief that Obama created an atmosphere in which his appointees and people who wanted to get into his good graces did everything they could – legally and illegally - to thwart his opposition. To the point of being suspected of stealing the 2012 election.

That would be bad.

What would be even worse is if the bureaucracy is so politically homogeneous and partisan that evena change of administration will not stop it from committing illegal acts. What if the bureaucracy is no longer under the control of the executive branch of government? Taranto:

This column is not alone in thinking it's possible the Internal Revenue Service stole last year's election. Economist Stan Veuger describes new research he conducted with colleagues at Stockholm University and Harvard:

[We] set out to find out how much impact the Tea Party had on voter turnout in the 2010 election. We compared areas with high levels of Tea Party activity to otherwise similar areas with low levels of Tea Party activity, using data from the Census Bureau, the FEC, news reports, and a variety of other sources. We found that the effect was huge: the movement brought the Republican Party some 3 million-6 million additional votes in House races. That is an astonishing boost, given that all Republican House candidates combined received fewer than 45 million votes. It demonstrates conclusively how important the party's newly energized base was to its landslide victory in those elections. . . .

President Obama's margin of victory in some of the key swing states was fairly small: a mere 75,000 votes separated the two contenders in Florida, for example. That is less than 25% of our estimate of what the Tea Party's impact in Florida was in 2010. Looking forward to 2012 in 2010 undermining the Tea Party's efforts there must have seemed quite appealing indeed. . . .

It might be purely accidental that the government targeted precisely this biggest threat to the president. It may just be that a bureaucracy dominated by liberals picked up on not-so-subtle dog whistles from its political leadership. Or, it might be that direct orders were given.

As we've repeatedly emphasized, the possibility that the IRS was acting under orders from the White House, as alarming as it is, is far less so than the "dog whistle" alternative. If the IRS did the bidding of the party in power without having to be ordered, then the federal government itself, not just the current administration, is so corrupt as to call into question the very integrity of American democracy.

It’s easier to fire a President than it is to fire an entire government. That may require a revolution.

"pour encourager les autres"

It's French for "to encourage others." It's an expression being used to describe how the manifold scandals surrounding the Obama administration, especially the AP telephone search and the NSA spying scandal are being used to make people fall silent. The AP says its regular sources of information on the government are afraid to talk now. Electronic surveillance of Sharyl Attkisson’s computers is surely having an effect on other reporters who may have thought about investigating Team Obama crimes. Only the toadies like Chris Matthews have nothing to fear. He loves Big Brother.

There’s no question that it’s working. Intimidation always works to some extent, and when the so called “watchdog press” is already working full-time for the Obama regime it doesn’t take much to silence the few voices who may have spoken up. And those who will not be silenced are called crazy.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

That would by Diana DeGette, a woman now infamous for not understanding that the magazines she was pushing to ban on firearms weren’t disposable.

These are the kinds of “leaders” we pick, the kinds of people who we have given power of us as a de facto ruling class.

But that’s all gravy. What’s nice here is that someone finally put the question to a Democratic politician who has, during the gun control debates, run with the party talking that even if bans, registries, etc., save but one life, they are worth the loss of liberty that is required to implement them. Which, if that’s the case, how can not a 5-month abortion ban be something she’s literally creaming over?

From the comments:

My friends and I started using the term “choiced” when referring to late term abortions. ex: “Those Gosnell babies got choiced!”

NPR recently moved from Chinatown into its new 400,000 square-foot home on North Capitol, and they’re excited about it. Eager to show off the new facility, the organization offered a tour to members of the media Tuesday morning, starting with breakfast from their in-house chefs, along with some talking points from CEO Gary Knell, who outlined some impressive features of the space.

Ever wonder why the Washington DC area is never felt the "great recession?"

Oh, and it has other great facilities that you unemployed "Country Class" don't have.

The tour continued through the wellness center, which is capable of simple medical procedures, the fitness center, which is staffed by a trainer, and the cafe, which utilizes the same catering company as Google. The cafe was named by a contest in which employees submitted more than 200 ideas. The winning name, Sound Bites, was entered by Stamberg, further marking her legacy at NPR and the new facility.

From the comments:

Given that these folks are all sucking on the public teat, they should have named that cafe "Free Lunch".

or

Gobbells Gormet eatery.

Keep in mind that the government subsidizes this propaganda organ to the tune of $400 million a year.

How long will it be before the Left in the US tells us that we need to follow the lead of Europe and imprison those with whose speech we disagree. If we can sic the IRS on them, it's just a small step to putting them in jail.

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Back in the ’80s when, on a couple of occasions, I visited the Soviet Union, I always wondered what was it really like to live in that godforsaken place. But it didn’t much matter. For all the creepy spying that was going on, I realized I’d be out of there in a week or two.

Now I know what it was like. It’s come home.

I live in fear.

I don’t want to admit it, but it’s true. Every phone call I make, every email I send, every text I message, every article I write including this one, I imagine being bugged or recorded.

1984 is here and it’s not pretty.

It infects everything we do.

For example, I want to criticize the IRS with every breath I take, but in the back of my head I worry — what if they come after me? What if I’m audited and have to spend the next few years and untold dollars on accountants and attorneys? Is this fair to my family? Is this how I want to spend my life?

Life goes on even in the middle of the most horrible events. And that’s what allows the press to turn their backs and pretend that tyranny is not taking over; that people are not watching what they say because, like residents of the Soviet Union, they could get the attention of the government agents that can make your life a living hell.

I know. I have heard my family tell about life in occupied Holland during World War 2. There was hunger, even starvation, danger from bombers; searches for contraband like bicycle tires, deportations to labor in Germany. And that’s for those who were not Jews; we know what happened to them. Yet people lived their lives, had kids, and made do. It has not gotten to that stage here. The tyranny of the ObamaState is of a softer kind: one or more of the alphabet agencies will descend on you to ruin your life. Or perhaps they can get a cooperative woman to claim you raped her.

Who is to say if I have the IRS audit me it’s because I wrote things that are critical of the regime? Would the press care? Hell, they don’t like what I write and would get a kick out of watching me get audited, investigated or even accused of crime. Regimes always have the support of the press. That part of the press that may oppose it usually gets intimidated or has its own problems with the powers that be.

The ones who are the easiest to intimidate are the ones with the most to lose, firmly middle class or modestly upper class like Simon. I recall Solzhenitsyn saying that he felt most free once he was in the Gulag, because there he had nothing more to lose; there was nothing more they could take away from him.

If you think these are paranoid ramblings, watch the Congressional hearings. Congress is supposed to be the watchdog to keep the administrative state in check. Note that the Administration’s minions are thumbing their noses are congressional deadlines. They are blatantly, openly lying to congressional committees with no fear that they will be prosecuted. And why should they worry? The police powers are firmly in the hands of the regime.

President Barack Obama's director of national intelligence was flat-out lying when he told lawmakers in March the government wasn't collecting data on millions of Americans, Sen. Rand Paul asserted Tuesday.

There are many things about the attack on the US Benghazi compound on 9/11/2012 that can be called a scandal. The Obama administration lying to the American people for political purposes seems to be the focus of a lot of the anger. But the real scandal is breaking faith with the men who fought for hours to repel the attack and failing to go their aid.

Kevin Norton, a former U.S. Army infantry officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, recounts how he and his men put themselves in danger to retrieve the body of an Afghan interpreter killed during an ambush. He puts it this way:

In Benghazi, the U.S. government simply did not do all it could to protect its agents in the field. Leon Panetta, defense secretary at the time of the attack, later told Congress that U.S. forces were not deployed because "you don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on."

This was a stunning abdication of responsibility. Mr. Panetta and President Obama knew that Americans were under attack that night. Thousands of U.S. military personnel have given their lives to save their fellow Americans—civilians and soldiers alike—under similar circumstances.

[snip]

Amid the many recent scandals that have come out of Washington, there is a danger that the disastrous Benghazi episode will be put aside before it has been adequately explored—before Americans know exactly who did and did not perform capably and honorably during those terrible hours and their aftermath.

We do already know one essential truth about Benghazi: The sacred bond between the government and those who serve it was broken, and the message was delivered to Americans serving around the world. That's a scandal.

The President’s men are busy hiding where Obama was and what he did while the men in Benghazi were fighting and dying. The suspicion is thick that Obama was busy creating his cover story so that he would not be blamed while people under his command were being killed. Because it's Obama the press doesn't care.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire and part owner of the New York Times has received over a billion dollars via the ObamaPhone program. Just as an aside, this article was printed in a British newspaper, not an American one. It seems that the Daily Mail provides more information on the Obama scandals that the American press, referred to by Rush Limbaugh as the "state run media." And he's right.

In an outdoor tent erected by Stand Up Wireless in the City of Brotherly Love, an O'Keefe plant probed a sales rep on May 21.

'Once it's my phone, I don't need to, like, bring it back or anything?' he asked, while the female worker shook her head in the negative. 'It's my phone, right?'

'Mm-hm,' she responded.

'If you're interested in learning -- wanting to know how much the phone's worth,' the woman offered later in the conversation, '[I] recommend you go to any pawn shop. They'll be more than happy to tell you, OK?'

'OK,' the actor replied. 'So I could get the phone and then sell it?'

'Yeah,' she said, 'I don't care what you do with it.'

A TerraCom Wireless salesman performed with similar disregard for federal law.

One young woman, posing as a low-income citizen on May 8 during a Terracom promotional giveaway in Minneapolis, asked plainly if she would be permitted to sell her new phone.

'It's kind of like, the first thing that I do is this here,' the TerraCom rep responded, referring to the required paperwork. 'And unfortunately there are people on drugs. They get this phone, and they go get $40. ... You basically do whatever you want to do with it. That's what I'm trying to tell you.'

'Well, I'm not on drugs,' she replies, 'but there is a really awesome pair of shoes at the store that I want.'

In mere seconds the TerraCom worker is seen breaking into uproarious laughter.

In Stand Up Wireless's tent, a young woman waited her turn in line. 'I already have a phone,' she says in the video footage, 'but I just need money. So, like, am I allowed to do what I want with the phone when I get it? Could I sell it?'

Which is the greater danger to freedom?

The government recording every Tweet, e-mail, Facebook post or other Internet activity?

The government asking you to show a photo ID when you vote to prevent voter fraud?

If you are a Liberal and also write for the Virginian Pilot (and every other member in good standing of the MSM) the answer is number three. You’re OK with numbers one and two because you trust the people who lied about Fast & Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandals, Pigford, bugging the AP and wiretapping FOX News reporters. In fact, if you are a student, you think they should be bugged more.

One thing I note as I watched this video is that most of the people who signed the petition were women. Draw your own conclusions.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Having lunch yesterday, the couple in the next booth were talking about the NSA spying on us. It's replaced a lot of the talk about the Kardashians, or baseball. But the NSA snooping has been going on a long time and the recent revelations should not have been a surprise to anyone. What's giving it importance is the evidence that this administration has crossed the red line that Americans have set up in their own minds. They no longer trust the government to stay within the boundaries required to keep the people of this nation free.

What makes the news scary are the revelations of what else Team Obama’s been up to. Follow the bouncing scandal ball:

* On Benghazi, the administration has simply clammed up, keeping suspicions alive that there’s much more to this story. A handful of intrepid reporters have bucked the tide, but others have stopped asking why no help was sent and where President Obama was that night. Because . . .

* In clear violation of the First Amendment, the administration — allegedly angered about national-security leaks — seized phone records from the AP and Fox News in a what looks like a transparent attempt to put the fear of God into them and keep others incuriously toeing the party line, which mostly amount to: Trust us. But can we? Consider . . .

* The strange goings-on at the Environmental Protection Agency, where recently-departed chief Lisa Jackson was using a fictitious e-mail account in order to communicate privately without all those pesky “transparency” requirements. How widespread is this practice? What to make of word that Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was also using “secondary” e-mail accounts?

* Then came the IRS bombshell — something every taxpaying American can relate to. That a supposedly neutral collection agency with powers far beyond what we entrust to law enforcement would cheerfully target Tea Party and other righty groups for special scrutiny is the stuff of Orwellian nightmares. And although the IRS has tried to blame “rogue elements” in its Cincinnati office, whistleblowers are coming out of the woodwork to point the finger directly at the White House.

All this adds up to a perfect storm of mistrust, now exacerbated by the fears of the surveillance state that has mushroomed since the panicky post-9/11 “reforms.” Thus Americans now fear a culture of suspicion among top law-enforcement officials, who treat more than 300 million overwhelmingly law-abiding Americans as potential criminals, subject to snoops and pat-downs.

And when that leviathan falls down on the job — as it did in failing to spot the Tsarnaev brothers — then the trade-off between liberty and security becomes a very bad bargain indeed.

Luddites at the Virginian Pilot

For those who went to public school a little explanation may be in order. “Luddites” were a movement by people who were afraid of technology. Merriam Webster:

one of a group of early 19th century English workmen destroying laborsaving machinery as a protest; broadly: one who is opposed to especially technological change.

The Left has become increasingly Luddite, fearful of atomic power (the Virginian Pilot has wasted tons of newsprint on this issue), oil and gas exploration and now it goes into an anti-science rant about the dangers of fracking disguised as preservation.

The Left today is nostalgic for the time when they believed they held the moral upper hand. Today we have their incessant squawk about racism and anti-science when they themselves are practicing racism and protesting technologies that make things better and cheaper. They yearn for yesterday.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Given what we know about the NSA spying system and the Obama campaign's incestuous relationship with Google and other Silicon Valley Internet giants, the suggestion that Romney's system was deliberately overwhelmed at a crucial time nags in the back of one's mind.

And rememer the Obama Phone lady? It turns out that Obama was able to contact her and tell her to vote, and vote, and vote.

Detroit Defaults

The result of decades of total Democrat control.

A team led by a state-appointed emergency manager said Friday that Detroit is defaulting on about $2.5 billion in unsecured debt and is asking creditors to take about 10 cents on the dollar of what the city owes them.

Fun facts about Detroit:

20 percent of Detroit is on food stamps.

It's violent crime rate is 5 times the national average and it’s rated as America’s Most Dangerous City.

40% of Detroit residents want to leave the city.

Home prices have fallen 54 percent in the last 3 years.

Detroit has the highest poverty rate in the nation.

Detroit voted for Obama by 98 percent, because when you’re already living in a hellhole, your prime motivation is to drag the rest of the country in with you.

The 40 percent of Detroiters who want to leave have drawn no conclusions about the causes of all their problems.

Not enough fun facts?

50 years ago, Detroit's population was more than two million.

700,000 are left

The number of people who left Detroit in the last decade is nearly twice those who left New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Detroit’s public schools are among the worst in the nation in spite of spending nearly $16,000 per pupil, 60 percent more than Georgia spends.

Detroit school graduation rate is 32%.

Test scores are so bad the superintendent of the city’s schools once said they were no better than if the students had simply guessed at the answers.

Detroit’s per capita tax burden is several times the average for the Michigan cities.

Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit's last mayor was convicted of 24 federal crimes, including racketeering, extortion and bribery and is going to jail for up to 30 years.

Detroit is so Democrat that it's mayoral elections have two Democrats running against each other.

As an interesting sidelight, Kwame Kilpatrick was one of the Mayors Against Guns crowd started by Michael Bloomberg.

Finally, serious consideration is given to razing Detroit and turning it into farmland.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Ask yourself the question, who would break in to Sharyl Attkisson's computer?

This is obviously a politically-motivated crime, not a personally- or economically-motivated one. That doesn't mean the government had anything to do with it, but it certainly seems that someone favorably inclined towards the government did.

Attkinson was virtually the only MSM reporter interested in Fast & Furious and Benghazi.

Watergate started with a seemingly minor break-in too.

DOJ has already announced that “to our knowledge,” it has never accessed Ms. Attkisson’s computers

Noonan is one of those who, along with David Brooks and Christopher Buckley (Bill's son), was smitten with Barack Obama in 2008. They presented him as sharp, smart, moderate and just the right color to bring racial harmony to America. Brooks is still smitten but Noonan is backing away. (We never found out what happened to Bill's son.)

Her most recent essay has an interesting insight into something going on in America today. Keep in mind that Obama represents the counterculture of the 1960s. The part that hated the culture and the institutions of the country. They are the ones who spit on Viet Nam vets as they came home, and chanted "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Min, the Viet Cong are going to win" as they rioted for a communist victory in Viet Nam.

They didn't like America. And they went on a long march through the institutions they own today: academia, the media, the press, the "permanent" government.

Pushing back, the rest of the country became more reflexively more pro-country. But that is changing thanks to the Obama administration. Now that the hard core cadres of the Left have captured the Presidency, the patriotism of the Country Class may be turning.

Noonan:

I feel that almost everyone who talks about America for a living—politicians and
journalists and even historians—is missing a huge and essential story: that too
many things are happening that are making a lot of Americans feel a new distance
from, a frayed affiliation with, the country they have loved for half a century
and more, the country they loved without every having to think about it, so
natural was it. This isn't the kind of thing that can be quantified in
polls—it's barely the kind of thing people admit to themselves. But talk to
older Americans—they feel they barely know this country anymore. In governance
its crucial to stay within parameters, it's important not to strain ties, push
too far, be extreme. And if you think this does not carry implications for down
the road, for our healthy continuance as a nation, you are mistaken. Love keeps
great nations going.

But when love is reciprocated with hate, there is a reaction.

If this country is really Obama's America; if he and the people who elected him are the future of America, I'm glad I'm old enough to be closer to the end than the beginning. My admiration for law enforcement, for the military, for teachers, for trust in the basic justice of the government is disappearing. I may soon end up as part of the NEW American counterculture. After all, if the country under Obama represent the dominant culture, then those of us who were once patriots will now become what they once were.

UPDATE: Thanks Glenn, and welcome Instapundit readers. You may also like Detroit Defaults

Peggy Noonan has a column in today’s Wall Street Journal that makes the point that domestic spying will eventually, if it has not already, lead to a paranoid nation where no one trusts anyone.

Noonan:

If—what Snowden says is substantially true, the surveillance state will in time encourage an air of subtle oppression, and encourage too a sense of paranoia that may in time—not next week, but in time, as the years unfold—loosen and disrupt the ties the people of America feel to our country. "They spy on you here and will abuse the information they get from spying on you here. I don't like 'here.'"

Following the IRS and NSA revelations, the Internet is filled with references to the Stasi, the notorious East German police that monitored the people in that wretched country.

If we are going to stop government agents from the IRS, the FBI, the EPA or any of the other government alphabet agencies from crossing the line from servant to master, we must find the will to make sure that those who transgress are dealt with harshly. Harsh as in jail time; not simply fired, allowed to resign or put on paid leave like Lois Lerner.

When we commit a crime, lie to government agents or fall afoul of the myriad laws that have been passed we find ourselves in the coils of the judicial system. Government employees appear to have no fear of this, hence Ms. Lerner’s obvious contempt for the members of congress that tried to ask her some questions. It is past time to bring back the concept that they work for us, not the other way around. It is past time to rein in the Ruling Class. The only way that is done is for punishment to be severe and public.